To be alone
by Notasitseems-x
Summary: "It's funny" he says swirling the amber liquid round his thoughts lost somewhere in days long expired. "The innocent with long straight brown hair and the messed up, self-hating vampire. Remind you of anyone?"
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I own nothing.  
The title belongs to Hozier, whose brilliant song lyrics will hopefully feature at some point.  
Hi -waves gingerly- This is my first proper multi-chapter fic eeeep. I hope it's gets finished. The muse is strong so there is a chance. It will be AU no doubt after episode 18 airs. All mistakes and bad writing are my own. It's unbeta'd, I'm just trying to post some of my writing, I have a hard drive full of stuff, half written, and I decided that I'd actually like some of it to see the light of day. It's trash, but it's my trash. I hope it works on some level.  
_  
"It was a mistake bringing you into my life."_

_"Then why did you?"_

_"Call it deep and obvious loneliness. The truth is, you've been a pawn in a game that I've not lost interest in playing. You're no ordinary girl, Sarah Salvatore. You deserve better."_

He fobs her off with some excuse about once knowing a Sarah Salvatore, but her suspicions are raised and all the while she's fighting a crushing indifference to feel suspicious. It's a strange and powerful thing, as if her emotions are the strings of a puppet that someone else has the control of. It begins to give her a headache and she's got Matt's number dialed in and is almost about to press ring to ask him about it, before she surrenders.

The top and the bottom of it is that she feels different now. Enzo talked about her being a pawn in a game that he got bored of, the problem is she still feels that she playing. Again this crushing need to be apathetic overwhelms her but it does not stop the nightmares. The cloying tendrils of fear and the excruciating cut of metal through her flesh, but she cannot piece the fragments together to make a coherent narrative.

Each morning she wakes shivering the breathlessness of panic solidifying in her stomach.

Duke is the same as ever, life creaking and revolving on, it is only Sarah that feels as if she has stopped suspended in this confusing paradox.

OOO

"Hey Sarah"

She flinches lost in the set of images in front of her that she had been working on, on her laptop.

"Matt, hey, this is a surprise."

He shrugs, slightly awkward and she knows immediately he was sent to check up on her.

"I was in the area."

"I'm sure," she replies with a raise of her eyebrows. They buy coffees and chat for a while, and it seems to soothe something in her, he is connected to the "game" to the confusing annex to her life that appeared out of nowhere.

"You been busy with school?"

"Yeah, I guess, there's always lots to do."

His fingers falter on the handle of his mug.

"Are you sleeping okay?"

She stares at him, wondering why he's asking, if it's even him who is really asking. She considers shutting him down, but she does like Matt, he's kind and open and his eyes are warm.

"I've had a few nightmares" she admits tentatively.

He sighs "I had a feeling you'd say that."

He leaves soon after and she tries not to conclude that he only came to ask her about that.

OOO

She's chained to a metallic table which is unforgiving to her back and head. The overhead lights are blindingly bright, pain radiates from her torso but she cannot look down to see the source. She screams for him to stop and her pleas are echoed but not to her, to someone else, hidden away. She struggles but the chains do not budge. She screams but it dies in her throat. The lights overwhelm and she sees no longer.

It's quiet here, there's no pain and she's not afraid. There's the faint scent of lavender and basil, so she has the impression of being outside, she wants to know more but there's a heavier pull dragging her deeper down into unconsciousness. She knows there's someone there but she cannot fight to determine more.

The next morning when she awakes, her window is open, and there's a tang of herbs in the air.

OOO

A week after she returned to Duke, a man appears at her door. He's tall, with golden brown hair black eyes and a dangerous smile that has the impression of not always being so. He always looks vaguely familiar like a photo she once saw in passing.

"You need to come with me."

She laughs

"And why would I do that?"

He whistles and two more people appear, a blonde woman, she recognizes and a hunched figure that she is dragging along

"Enzo?"

He looks up and splutters up some liquid that appears to be burning him he also has a stake protruding from his stomach

"Don't panic petal, just do as he says."

"You should listen to him" the man says in a velvet soft voice "otherwise that stake comes out of his stomach and straight through his heart."

She doesn't care about vampires, she's not even vaguely curious, but this threat clutches at her heart in an alarming way that she follows him without question.

"Who are you?" She ventures when they're all bundled in the car, Enzo is leaned across the back and middle seat groaning softly to himself. The blonde woman looms over him, watching him closely as though expecting a sneak attack. She is sat in the front.

He glances across at her

"Stefan Salvatore, nice to meet you."

Salvatore? She twists round to look at Enzo accusingly who does not lift his head to face her.

"Only the tip of the iceberg" he chokes and the blonde woman stuff some herbs into his mouth which sizzle and hiss and Sarah shrieks

"Stop it, I won't make him talk again I promise"

Stefan just smiles and pushes the accelator harder.

OOO

Their destination is a big old boarding house that looms ominous as they screech into the driveway. She barely has time to register anything before her door is swung open and she is hauled from the car. Enzo is being half carried by the blonde, Caroline she suddenly remembers. They make a strange party, she thinks distantly, feeling strangely disconnected from her hammering heart.

"Don't forget to breathe Sarah" Enzo chokes and he is answered in kind by a kick to the stake which makes him gasp and fall to the floor in the entryway of the house. Her breath stalls in her throat and she wonders how he can think of that when he is almost on his knees in agony. Stefan strides on, as if he owns the place so she guesses that he probably does. She follows him not wanting to endanger herself, or Enzo further. The wooden passageway opens out into a lofty wooden room with a roaring fire on the back wall. Another man appears from the side wall where a drinks cabinet resides. His eyes widen when he sees them

"What are you playing at Stefan?"

"Call it payback, you and Elena and everyone else is so damn determined to switch my humanity back on by guilt tripping me that I thought it was about time I did the same."

The man, shorter than Stefan with raven hair like Enzo's, curses.

"Look, I've got an irate witch and a ripper of a mother on my case, don't talk in riddles."

Stefan smiles and pulls Sarah into the foreground

"Well then, I'll keep it brief. Damon meet Sarah. Your great niece."

Damon visibly pales his eyes fixed wide, unstaring. Sarah for her own part can hardly digest the news, this means that she has blood family, but how can that be since they are vampires? The questions swirl incessantly like the nausea in her gut.

"But Gail, she…"

"You killed her, you mean." Stefan deals the blow uncaringly and Sarah feels its force. She felt fleeting pity for Damon but now she just feels numb. "Well" Stefan continues "I saved her unborn child and made sure she had a family who loved her and so she grew into the lovely young woman you see today. Until your best friend Enzo" he gestures with his head back to the hallway which is silent Sarah notes with a shiver "decided to take revenge against me by plotting to destroy Sarah."

The world blurs and she feels woozy. Strong arms steady her as her body gives.

"Yes, don't be fooled great niece, that charming dashing English accent is all a front. He doesn't care about you, he was more interested in getting back at me and your death would do just that."

There's a muffled cry from the hallway which makes Stefan chuckle.

"He's even got the cheek to try and defend himself, he said that he never planned to kill you."

She pulls away from Stefan, she doesn't know what to make of the Enzo revelation but this man in front of her is worlds apart from the man who saved her as a baby and she wants far away from him as possible.

Damon who was silent thoughout the exchange speaks up

"What do you want Stefan, what's the evil plan? It's easier if you just spell it out clearly rather than waste my time with the elaborate sadist act."

"Caroline"

There's movement and groaning and eventually Enzo and Caroline appear.

"Caroline, really? Are you still buying into Stefan's ridiculous ways."

She throws him a glare that would wither the daffodils in the window sill but says nothing.

"So plan, your best friend who you betrayed and left for dead at Whitmore, or your great niece who you made an orphan before she'd even left the womb. Who is it to be?"

Damon didn't get a chance to decide or even question further as at that point all hell broke loose. Both Caroline and Stefan fell to the floor writhing in pain as a small determined looking woman appeared from the hallway chanting words that meant nothing to Sarah.

Stefan laughed

"Bonnie, really? I capture Enzo and Sarah and your idea of the cavalry is Bonnie?"

A whistling sound and stakes hits the two vampires on the ground straight in the stomach and arms.

"Don't forget me" that voice belongs to an older man

"And me" Matt appears from apparently nowhere and his eyes widen when he sees her, she attempts a smile but she's not sure her mouth got the message.

Caroline curses the blonde man muttering about loyalty.

Stefan laughs again, yanking the stake out of his arms

"So you do some witchy nonsense and throw a couple of stakes" he yells as his head is thrown back and Bonnie tilts her head in reply "do you really have the guts to tie us up and dry us out?"

Sarah panics as the two seems to be recovering fast and she sense that what the people have done is rather like angering a wasp. In all the commotion she'd forgotten Enzo who suddenly, in a blur too quick for her eyes stuck to syringes into both Caroline and Stefan who slumped on the floor unconscious.

"Tsk tsk Blondie, first rule, I'm the Augustine vampire, it'll take a little more than a stake and some vervain stuffed in my mouth to keep me down for long. Plus" he winks at Sarah "I'm not a bad actor."

The other have sprung into action shifting the two vampires from the room, in a flurry of movement and yelled instructions.

Damon glances at her guardedly and she holds her hands up,

"Just, I don't know what to say. I'm still stuck on great uncle."

Damon nods

"Yeah me too," he replies sadly and then is gone. Enzo is still stood there also eyeing her cautiously and she begins to feel like a caged animal no one knows how to handle.

"Most people prefer snakes and ladders or monopoly when it comes to games" she proffers and he laughs but it sounds hoarse and pained. He's covered in blood and despite his statement to the contrary doesn't look well.

There's a yell and she flinches and Enzo catches her arm

"Come on, I'll take you home."

They stumble together from the boarding house, and it's cleansing just to breathe in the late afternoon air. She notices his sluggish reactions and has her arm held out before she can really question her actions.

He looks to her and then to her arm.

"I'm not interested in vampires but I know how this works."

"Then you'll know it's not an incredibly smart idea to offer yourself as a snack to a hungry vampire."

His eyes shut but it doesn't stop the veins rippling around them. She's not scared of his vampirism, she wasn't scared of Stefan because of that it was more the mania raging in his eyes, his threats on her person, (and Enzo) but she doesn't dwell on the latter. Too much has happened in such a short space of time for her to question this too.

When she doesn't relent he sighs, and takes hold of her wrist, his thumb absent mindedly rubbing soothing circles over the vein.

"I do need to feed, but they have blood bags inside."

"just do it" she whispers, so he does. He doesn't appear to be questioning either.

It doesn't hurt as such, maybe because he's being mindful or because she'd not being violated. It's a freely given thing. It's a tickling soft pressure that despite being removed from her body by being in her wrist she can still feel his lips on her skin and it makes her shiver in a very different way to the cold malice of Stefan's menace earlier.

"It's more than I deserve Sarah Salvatore."

He heals the wound with a drop of blood elicited by the prick of his finger of a fang. She examines her wrist in the car dazedly, there is not sign that he was ever there. She gets lost in the action and before she knows it she's been shook awake by Enzo who is kneeling by the open door.

"Wait this is Stefan's car."

He frowns slightly at her non sequiter but shrugs

"Well he won't be needing it for a while."

"He's going to be held captive until he switches his humanity back on, Caroline too" he clarifies at her puzzled look which she cannot mould into a question.

He hesitates on her doorstep but she invites him in tiredly.

She's not really sure what he's going to do, as she's planning on taking some tynelol and sleeping for a long time after she's changed into her pajamas.

He's there when she's searching the kitchen cupboard for the medication and he takes her wrist making her face him.

"Are you hurt?"

"No I just want to sleep."

"Okay."

"Are you leaving?"

"Do you want me to?"

She should scream yes, she should run away as fast as she can, she should haul him from her home, but she doesn't, she can't. She also catches the cloying bittersweet smell and tang of basil and lavender, and something clicks in her memory.

"No, I sleep better when you're around."

His eyes are questioning but do not push and she leaves him for the comfort of her bed.

He's taken residence in the old wooden chair beside her dresser and he's fairly certain she's unconscious when a sleeply slurred voice floats over to him.

"You're not that great of an actor you know."

A velvety chuckle accompanies her into the blackness.


	2. Chapter 2

Sorry for the delay! I got put of writing because of canon Sarah/Enzo plot line. However i think I've managed to align my story with where they ended. It will go AU again but we won't know that until S7 starts. I really hope Sarah returns and we get more of these two on screen.  
I've just written this so it is probably utter twaddle. Sorry!

Enzo becomes a feature of her days over the coming weeks, he's never explicitly present, but his presence is something she is aware of. She's not sure whether he's there because she is in danger or whether it is his way of trying to atone for once having her death as part of one of his plans.

It's a sunny Wednesday afternoon on campus when she's had enough.

"Look" she begins at normal speaking voice knowing that he'll be able to hear her "if you're going to stalk me at least buy me coffee first."

She waits for him to slink into view from his hiding spot, but she remains alone, with only the embarrassment of having just talked to herself for company.

She trudges across campus after giving up on trying to work, her head still swirling with thoughts of great uncles, and humanity switches and blood bags. At least it dampened down the lingering remains of splenectomies and metal tables, not that she was aware.

Her attention was caught by a scatter of daffodils that had sprung up at the side of the main path. There was no pattern or order to them, it was nature at its rawest and more natural. The yellow trumpets were open majestically the height of life. She knew however there'd be a time when she'd walk down the path and they'd be gone. The thought chilled her, life death and everything having its time. Her attention was caught by a scatter of daffodils that had sprung up at the side of the main path. There was no pattern or order to them, it was nature at its rawest and more natural. The yellow trumpets were open majestically the height of life. She knew however there'd be a time when she'd walk down the path and they'd be gone. The thought chilled her, life death and everything having its time. She absent mindedly stroke the yellow petal of one, and on her way home buys several bunches from the shop and hands them out to people she passes on the way home who look sad. She saves two, for her mother and father whom she never knew, but could have done. Her fists clench and she resolves to get answers. She is ready now. The eyes that have burnt holes in her back for weeks falter at her determination.

OOO

He's leaning against her flat wall when she returns the next day after helping with a children's after school art club.

"You don't have coffee" she says by way of greeting.

He pushes off the wall, sultry grin in place.

"No" he concedes "but that can be easily resolved."

She eyes him warily,

"Why are you so agreeable today? And most of all" she gestures at him "present."

He chuckles but only leads her to his car in response.

OOO

The coffee shop is small and so the smell is concentrated and thick in the air. They settle on sofas that consume its occupants.

"Sarah, I…"

"Why would Damon kill my parents? What had they ever done to him?"

She doesn't feel like going through the niceties or even holding to etiquette and let him finish speaking. It's nice to expel the questions that had been poisoning her, sat inside festering away.

Enzo sighs and if he feels snubbed by her brushing off, he hides it well.

"It wasn't like that."

Her stare is stone and she's proud considering the intimidating man she's up against.

"You're avoiding the question Enzo."

"My my, you really have got it on you, haven't you petal."

"I'm sick of being told of half truths, of being kept in the dark. I'm sick of these dreams I keep having that have flashes of thing I don't understand. And I'm really sick of the nauseas I get from wanting to know these things but also the gut feeling that I shouldn't want to know. So yeah, I've 'got it on me'"

At some point during her speech she'd risen to her feet like the anger that had bubbled over, kept under the surface for too long. Enzo pierces her with a long search look and tugs at her to sit back down.

"Well I can deal with the last one" he's suddenly up close and she shrinks back slightly from the intensity of his gaze. She blinks, confused, like when she used to zone out in chemistry class. Enzo is regarding her expectantly "well?"

"Well what?"

"I'm a vampire Sarah, I eat people"

She waits for the knot in her stomach but it never comes and she can ask her next question freely.

"If Stefan saved me and gave me away to keep me safe, why did he take me to Damon?'

"Simple answer? Blood lust. That's a vampire's greatest curse. Sure, we live forever, have fantastic reactions, enhanced senses but we can never ever be free from the shackles and chains of the basic animal instinct to feed."

She shivers at his sinister macabre tone and the sick feeling is back, but it's different this time. She's warm, burning up her skin too tight, she pushes her chair back with a clatter and flees. It was a mistake, all of this, she doesn't want to know. Vampires, blood lust, murdered parents. She was happy as Sarah Nelson, she doesn't need this in her life and she certainly has no intention to play happy families that exchange Christmas cards and eat thanksgiving dinner together with two ancient vampires, even if they are blood related. A bad choice of words, for there it was again:_ Blood_.

Enzo, naturally is already waiting for her when she rounds the corner of the cafe to find her car. He grabs her roughly giving her no choice but to stumble along in his wake. It is just one more dizzying conundrum to add to the pile. On the one hand is his rough handed, nonchalant treatment of her, the worrying nature of this unknown game in which her fate sounded bleak. Then there was the kidnap, he called her petal, he fed of her with such gentleness and the dreams, she knows he's been sweetening the nightmares.

It just doesn't make sense.

"Where are you taking me?"

"You wanted answers, love, so I'm going to give you them, warts and all."

He hauls her to her small darkened studio walls lined with masses of images and unceremoniously dumps her in a chair. He doesn't bother with restraints, as she reasons he is the most effective restraint. He could have her head snapped before she could even consider making a run for it. Yet, she finds herself not wanting to flee out fear, he doesn't scare her. Not even now with the compulsion lifted, she feels oddly drawn to him even though she knows her had awful intentions towards her.

And so he tells her the whole ugly truth. It starts with his own story, a woman named Lilly, consumption, and a ship to America. A promise of family, his transformation, and subsequent abandonment.

"Why would she do that though? Turn you and then leave?"

"Who knows, probably some sick game" he sighs twirling one of her artist's pencils in his fingers.

"Like the one you were playing with me?"

"Exactly."

"How does Southampton sound?" At her answering frown "Well, I may as well compel you a nice play to disappear to."

Her heart is pounding in her chest, she doesn't want to go, but her reasons as to why are so baffling she cannot allow them room in her head.

"Or, you could give me the choice you never had. Look, you said it yourself- you do this, you're only making it worse."

"But you'll be safe" _From me, from your supposed family, from passing threats, lord knows we attract them something chronic._

"But what if I swore never to seek out the Salvatores again, from what I've seen and the bits you've told me I don't want any part of me real family."

Her words trigger something in him and in a blink he's up close in her face looming over her, searching her. It's a deep penetrating look filled with so much calculation, years of life, hurt, and menace. But there's something else, it zings between them, crackling deliciously when he grabs her wrists and pulls her to his level. There's barely and space between them now she's sure that if he didn't have super hearing he'd be able to determine her battering heart. His nostrils flare and she in his eyes that his mind is whirring through the possibilities so fast she's have no chance to keep up.

"Have a nice life Sarah Nelson."

Just like that, one sentence that leaves her bereft. The imprint of his searing touch on her wrists, his proximity are just memories now. She has nothing but her unreliable feeble mind to tell her that he was real.


	3. Chapter 3

Just a short chapter, but I wanted to keep it moving. Hoping the chapters will get longer! I see their story as more vignettes of interaction, so later chapters may seem to lose action flow but ho hum. If you are still reading this, you are a star. Thank you for all kind reviews and comments they mean the world. As always, I own nothing but this trash I write.

In the end it was as if none of it had ever happened. Her scars and any physical sign that vampires had torn through her life had long since healed, and the aforementioned fanged beings were nowhere to find on the Duke skyline.

She should be thankful that she was allowed her memories untampered with, no matter how feeble they are.

True to her word, she remains unmotivated to make contact with the Salvatores or try and bring justice for her slaughtered parents. They are but ghosts to her, mere whispers of what ifs. Confronting hundred plus year old vampire won't bring them back nor be particularly good for her own health. Perhaps it is brutal but she has had a good childhood with a family that cocooned her in unconditional love, morals, family dinners, holidays and the like. The fact they were not biologically related to her does not change the fact that they are her family.

However she cannot help but miss _him. _She's half a mind to get herself sectioned, as it makes no rational sense. He tricked her, lied to her, got her hospitalized, kidnapped by a ripper, admitted to wanting to make her a monster, and then left.

As romantic interests go that has to be pretty dire.

She finds herself becoming a lover of the night, not in the same way as a vampire, who might need it out of necessity or just sheer atmosphere: Monsters belong in the darkness, lurking in the shadows waiting to pounce on their victims. No, the night for humans meant rest and recuperation in sleep, and sleep more often than not meant dreams.

For Sarah, dreams were the only place she could see him.

_Have a nice life Sarah Nelson._

Like reality, he always left her and in the morning her stomach was always full of stones at the stark reminder of those words. Not just _Goodbye,_ but _have a nice life_. Away from danger, yes, but it was a finality she couldn't bear to live with. But she was not sure she would be living to deal with the consequences should she seek him out.

As with most bleak times in her life, she takes solace in her photography. She begins to hang around public places people watching, just waiting for the right person. As long as they're tall and relatively dark she doesn't mind it's the expression she lives for. An intensity that makes her shiver. Alas, she never quite finds it, not that's she surprised if she had she'd be staring down her lens at him, and he'd made it quite clear that whatever had shimmered between them was over.

She sets up a shoot with two people who look like them, the girl eyes her quizzically their matching skin tone and straight brown hair an elephant in the room Sarah desperately ignores, and precedes to instruct them she has him take her wrist in his.

"No Jake, look at her like she's vital to you. You're deciding on what's she worth, whether you're going to listen to her and to what is right, or whether you're going to do what you want."

She gets some shots, but it's a pathetic imitation of what she knows happened. A bit like her memory, she hates to admit it but she can't picture him with any great clarity any more, yet it's only been half a year. He's fading around the edges like a picture curling up in flames.

She has Jake stand behind the girl her looking at the camera and him always looking at the girl. She even tries to get him to make out to bite her, but cannot seem to form the words directly, though she knows from the look of alarm that he got her gist.

"What did you say these were for again?"

"Oh, just some idea I wanted to play around with" she tries to sound nonchalant but they both look at her as if she is crazy.

Maybe she is.

OOO

She doesn't spot him at first, her gaze downcast toward her bag in which she rummages for her keys. Her steps are weary, the children at the art class keep her on her toes. Today they decided that it would be more fun to paint each other rather than the canvas in front of them. There had been 12 too many sheepish apologetic conversations with parents at the end of the hour class for Sarah's liking.

She fumbles with the lock twice before it open, tiredness again and is in the kitchen boiling water for pasta before she notices him. Or rather, he decides to make his presence unavoidable.

"I do hope there's enough for me."

She shrieks and almost covers herself in water but he's there super speed and super senses. He takes the pan from her and places it safely on the hob. Sarah, meanwhile is still reveling in the scent of lavender and musk, that she could do no justice to in her dreams. She shakes her head to clear it.

"What are you doing here?"

He breezes around her kitchen picking up a salt shaker and examining her fruit bowl.

"Oh nothing to worry about, just a slight hitch with mama Salvatore so it was thought best we keep an eye on you."

Her heart jolts, because she knows a slight hitch means she could be a risk of becoming dinner and the very fact he is brushing over the facts tells her it is pretty serious.

"And you were chosen for babysit Sarah duty?"

"Well if you fancy Matt the blood bag's chances against a 150 year old ripper vampire by all means I'll swap places."

She sighs and turns her attention to dinner, because processing this news is making her head hurt.

"So much for have a nice life Sarah Nelson" she mutters to the packet of grated cheese.

She knows he hears, but he makes no comment.


	4. Chapter 4

Sorry for the mistakes, but hey only a week has passed by! Are you proud? Are you even there? I'll stop talking now. Thank you for reading!

In the end she does call Matt, but only to act as a weird buffer to stop her from having to deal with Enzo's odd reappearance in her life. She doesn't understand it, she spent the past year or more wishing he was there and now that he was, well, she'd rather not think about it. She guessed it just proved the old adage correct: the grass is truly greener on the other side.

Which is why they end up at the campus gym tennis court the following Thursday afternoon: Matt's half day off. She was pleasantly surprised to find he had done so well in his police exams he had been appointed acting sheriff of Mystic Falls. Whilst she was fond of him, she was afraid he was mostly just a puppet of the vampires crowded into his life. It was also humbling for him to have to "fit her in" to his schedule.

"Um Sarah" Matt begins pointing to the three rackets she holds "There are only two of us"

She sighs turning to no one in particular speaking at the same volume as Matt "Are you going to play with us or not, because this silent but deadly stalker thing you have going on is getting pretty old."

Matt laughs as Enzo sheepishly approaches from the changing rooms.

"Alright Miss Bossy, you have me. But in case you didn't know, vamp sense means I can beat you. With my eyes shut. And my hands behind my back" Matt folds his arms defensively and Sarah waves him off.

"Which is why you'll be playing both of us" Enzo raises a brow "call it a handicap."

"Well seeing as you asked nicely but don't expect me to don my all whites."

He considers the racket in her outstretched hand, before his eyes fall to her loose plum sports top and grey shorts. He knows she reads his expression correctly because her breath catches and she quickly calls them to start the game.

_I wouldn't mind seeing you in a tennis dress however._

Naturally, he wins. He was tempted to throw the game, but he knows she would have resented him for it. He does have to commend them for giving their best effort, pitiful but still commendable. In fairness, there is evidence in the power Matt gets behind the ball, and the way he hits it that he has had at least some training on how to properly fight. Enzo muses that he might even last 20 seconds. Sarah on the other hand attacks with enthusiasm but hinders their efforts so Matt ends up doing most of the work himself. He can see that she will miss before she even gets the racket into place. Maybe if she stopped watching his returns and focused on the job at hand she might actually contribute positively to the blood bag team. He lazily flicks the ball downwards and it grazes the net landing neatly on their side.

"Another point to me" he announces

He sees her fingers twitch and he knows she wants the racket to be a camera, not that even a machine as quick as that would be able to sufficiently capture his movements.

It's all futile.

They wait for Sarah outside the female changing rooms after Sarah declared she was done for and reluctantly crowned him the winner. Matt congratulated him with a blow to the vulnerable part of his stomach just below his ribs.

"She wouldn't want me to let her win" he responded as he lent against the wall wishing her to hurry up.

Matt just grunted absorbed in his phone. Enzo sighed and pushed off his leaning post.

"I'm going in, something is not right"

His companion chuckled eyes never leaving the tiny screen

"Trust me man, she's not been in there 10 minutes yet. That's nothing, Caroline's record has to be an hour and a half."

"Yeah well, Sarah is not Blondie, she doesn't primp and preen or talk the leg off a hind donkey."

He knows he's revealed too much when blue surprised eyes burn through the side of his face.

He sighs and compromises by homing his sense in on her. His faces blanches as he smells blood and can only hear faint shallow breathing. He's zipped through the swing door and is in the chlorine and floral smelling room before Matt can even register what's happened.

The sight that greets him is just as bad as he feared but for different reasons. A woman with long brown hair lies dead on the floor her pretty neck bitten and her lifeblood all over the non slip floor.

Sarah stands motionless beside her frozen in shock.

Matt takes in the scene and begins operation call the cavalry and clean up.

It's an odd feeling that pulses through him as he gingerly takes Sarah's hand and pulls her to face him. Being around as long as he has has given him a sense of being sure. Sure in himself and fairly sure in the reactions of others. But right now he's drowning, knowing that it's his fault.

"Why?" The single word rasped in a voice dry from neglect cracks something in his wizened forgotten heart.

"Like I said, Lily Salvatore is on the warpath. She wants something neither I or your Uncle Stefan are prepared to give so she's sending out a message."

"He is not my uncle, my uncle is called David and he lives in Michigan with Hayley and their three girls." It's vehement, it's a protest, it's a reassurance. To herself, to him, who knows.

"I don't doubt it pet" he begins realising his tone has taken on that one would use with a skittish horse.

"No, I don't think you do, my other Uncle, Damian" she offers a wry smile at the similarity "the nomad, the loose cannon is off "finding himself" in Europe. Those two men you talk of are not my family."

"Where is your family Sarah?" He asks quietly, voicing something that had been sitting there for too long."You never speak of them, you never visit them, hell you don't even call them on the phone."

Her breath catches but her pulse flutters wildly his eyes drawn to her wrist still in his hand.

"When did you cut them off? Was it after the hospital?"

Her head bobs up and down and she swallows heavily

"I thought I was keeping them safe."

His thumb brushes across her veins, the skin smooth and warm, without conscious thought, just like the night he took her blood and then night he let her go. The juxtaposition of the serious nature of their situation and the delicious temptation and pull of the woman before him makes his head swim.

"Selfless Sarah" he murmurs bringing her wrist to his lips, her breath hitches with desire and her pupils dilate and he knows he has her. But right then it doesn't make him roar with primal triumph or animalistic satisfaction of having ensnared his prey.

It makes him sad.

_Or you could give me the choice you never had._

Her words echo hollowly, and repeatedly in his head as he watches over her dreams that night. He takes her to her family, they share joyful hugs and happy tears. Her mom makes a huge dinner with all of Sarah's favourites and she is radiant in the light airy dining room as they eat and chat and laugh. Away from revenge threats, away from the darkness of this world he entangled her in. Away from him.

OOO  
_It's a stoic sort of a place is this boarding house. It's seen so much life and death, supernatural and otherwise, yet here it stands in all its heavy oak glory. Cheery fire crackling away come rain or shine, joy or tragedy. _

_"It's funny" he says swirling the amber liquid round his thoughts lost somewhere in days long expired. "The innocent with long straight brown hair and the messed up, self-hating vampire. Remind you of anyone?"_

_"Look I understand your angst about Elena but you don't need to project on to me Damon."_

_He snorts_

_"Your face when momma dearest unveiled her evil scheme, man I know that face, you don't have to lie to me" he becomes lost in the orange flickers. "Stefan however, he worked so hard to give her a good life and you undo it all in a flash." He chuckles "I have to hand it to you friend, that is my level fucked up."_

_He cannot do anything but take what Damon says, even if he screams to deny the accusations of feeling something for Sarah. It goes against everything he taught himself. Not just his experience at the Augustine house, Maggie, but before right back to the whole sorry reason he is the vampire today._

_No one can be trusted. And even if Sarah is as pure as she seems, she is as Damon said, an innocent. A fragile human thread as fleeting as a dandelion clock waiting to be taken by the breeze. _

_"I'll protect her, and fix this whole bloody mess. It's my mess to sort and I'll do it."_

_Damon rises from his seat considering him wide eyed_

_"Damn right you will, don't forget that Enzo. This is all on you."_


	5. Chapter 5

Freshly written, probably contains mistakes. Apologies. Maxiefae requested Damon and Sarah interaction, and who am I to deny. It actually fitted in well and helped me shape this chapter, so thank you!

Her door is unlocked when she arrives home, and immediately her guard is up. She reaches for the stake in her bag holding it as a weapon.

"Enzo?"

She switches on the light illuminating her living space and kitchen, nothing seems out of place.

Then she notices the door to her art studio is open, the door she always keeps locked.

She creeps forward, ready and listening knowing that if there is a threat she is dead. She is no match for a supernatural. She is skin, and bones and blood, so fragile and fleeting. It is this though that makes her stride into the studio knowing she has nothing to lose. The sight that greets her is a shock but not for the reasons she initially thought.

Enzo is stood stock still, a photo in his hand. She talks to him, asks him what is wrong but she may as well talk to the wall for all the response she gets. She's about to phone Matt when his voice rings out

"What game are you playing Sarah?"

"I don't know-"

She is assaulted by one of the images she took of the two models that bore some resemblance to the two of them. Of course it is the one in which she tried to get him to bite her neck.

"Is that what you want? For me to bite you, use you, drain you dry? Is that all you see me as? As some sick macabre outlet for your depraved sad story?"

The hurt in his eyes guts her but at the same time fills her with hope because it means that he actually feels something at the prospect of just being a means to an end. He doesn't just see her as a blood bag.

Her mind cycles through several replies and she settles on one but she's barely even formed the first word, her upheld hand in surrender is clasped in his, his finger on his lips as a signal, his eyes wide on alert.

He moves her with super speed to the far wall covering her body with his own as wooden bullet rain down on where they were just seconds ago.

She looks up into his eyes pleading with him to see her, to see that this hold he has on her is more than some weird desire. Despite everything he initially intended for her, he is now her protector.

A woman enters the cramped space and tuts

"Enzo, whatever happened to loyalty? I am as good as your family and you turn your back on me at the smallest request."

He turns to face Lily and she knows any second he'll move out of her grasp completely but she cannot help but cling onto his hand. He gives her a final squeeze, in strength, in warning, in dismissal, who knows but it is enough for then.

"I think we both know that harnessing the power of a dormant dead not dead human vampire human doppelganger for your people goes a bit beyond my loyalty and into the territory of pissing off two brothers, blondie, witchy, and hunter, oh and blood bag too" he adds as an afterthought.

"But sweet man you could have helped persuade them that no harm would come to Elena." She approaches him and makes to embrace him but he steps back away from her in disgust.

"You do not threaten me or this innocent girl beside me and still get to touch me."

"So you do love her then?"

Her breath catches and she watches him intently for a reaction, sorely regretting that she can only see the back of him.

It's as sudden as the moon passing front of sun, the terse warmth in Lily's eyes is extinguished and cold, hard, consequence is left. The veins round her eyes ripple and Sarah knows what is coming next, but movement, movement and then black.

The throbbing in the back of her head is her first welcome back into consciousness, the second being the comfort of her bed so she assumes she must have been brought here during her black out.

They are both stood in the doorway, clad in black talking terse whispers, she strains to make them out but lacks concentration or enhanced hearing. Standing up is a bad idea as the room sways but then again she is enveloped in him so it has its advantages.

"I'm sorry about the photos, I just missed you, you know." She breathes before the fog engulfs her again.

There's a slow steady beep, at first it sounds like she is hearing it underwater but as she becomes more aware of it, the sound becomes louder, clearer. Eventually she realises it means she is in hospital.

Her body feels heavy and her head as if it has been filled with cotton wool.

She groans and a hand reaches out to her. Spurred on by the prospect of seeing him again she opens her eyes but is assaulted by the figure of Damon, not Enzo.

"Oh" she manages and he fixes her with a knowing stare.

"Wrong vampire?"

"No that's not..." she swallows trying to clear her throat but her voice sounds thick as if that had been filled with cotton wool too.

"Never mind that, how do you feel?"

"Sore, too sore to say that I know as many vampires as I do."

Damon's eyes darken and he clenches the metal railing of her hospital bed tightly.

"Funny you should mention that, but seeing as we no longer have a doc in the know on our side, they rushed you straight into the OR and it was decided that we should let them proceed unless we got wind that you had taken a turn for the worse."

She frowns,

"But couldn't you just compel the doctors into letting you through and give me vampire blood?"

He snorts

"Great niece, I know we've not had the best of relationships, well not one at all, but you think like me. Stefan and your best friend Enzo however."

All the frowning makes her head pound and she shuts her eyes against it.

"I think he's mad at me."

When he doesn't reply immediately she realises she must have dozed off.

"Who? Enzo? Judging by the fact he's glued to the waiting room chair outside and never left the OR door before that, I think he might have forgiven you."

He looks furtively at her but she still has her eyes shut.

"Why would he be mad at you?" He asks in a rush, unable to hold in the question any longer.

She sighs tiredly and shoots him a glance.

"Look I appreciate you staying with me, but I don't think we're really at the bonding stage where we have heart to hearts."

Vampires never age, but right then the sorrow in his eyes, the weight of such a long lifetime of mistakes, he truly looks all his hundred plus years. And that pulls at something inside her. Not enough to spill her guts, or even consider getting to know him, but it heals something she didn't know was wounded. She sees in that look deep remorse for his actions, that words could never sufficiently communicate.

So in return she rests her frail human hand on his, now dormant against the side of her bed. No words, because she doesn't know what to say. But that small gesture builds a bridge. He stares down at her hand and then back at her and offers a strained smile.

"Steady now niece, I think that almost contributes a heart to heart."

She chuckles tiredly, her eyes flickering shut once more.

OOO

Damon checks the clinical white walled, white lino, plastic chaired adorned waiting room to ensure it is empty before approaching Enzo and punching him squarely in the jaw.

"I'm not sure what happened between you and Sarah but she says you were mad at her so I'm going to assume it is your fault. And if it wasn't well, it was for her being around for you to be mad at her in the first place."

He shakes his head to clear before stretching his jaw out testing to see if it had healed.

"Well, she's clearly made an impression on you."

"Stefan was dead right to keep her away from all of this." Damon hisses before stalking down the corridor and out of the hospital.

He doubts there is a day that will pass without the heaviness of regret and guilt shrouding him like a cloak.

His only consolation is that he has the privilege to know her, her beauty, her kindness, her talent. But he knows that said acquaintance comes at too high a price. This is the second time she has been hospitalized because of vampire schemes, not to mention the encounters she escaped unharmed.

He inhales sharply and clenches his fist his resolve strengthening. He will make sure Sarah Nelson lives a happy fulfilled, no matter what it takes. It is not chivalrous, or brave, or strong of him. It is a debt owed, or a penance if he was a confessional sort of a man.

It is the least he can do.

OOO

_"Sarah" _

_It's a whisper, a promise, a plea. _

_"Sweet Sarah"_

_Lips brush at her ear and the solid weight of him is sure and steady at her back. Her eyes flutter shut and she longs to spin around and brush her lips against his. Would he resist? Would he respond?_

"Sarah."

She jolts awake

"Sorry to wake you sweetie, but the Doctor wants to check you over, and he's on tight schedule."

Her eyes flicker to the door and she swears she sees the back of someone dressed in all black.

"Was there someone here?"

"Oh yes, a nice man"

"Damon?"

The smiley nurse frowns

"N-no. He..." she stops abruptly and her eyes take on a glazed look before she shakes herself beaming face back like a summers day.

Sarah has been around here long enough to recognize compulsion when she sees it.

_Enzo._

_OOO_

"Are you still mad at me?" She asks cautiously as he sets a tray of tinned soup, bread, and tea in her lap not meeting her eyes. He's not as open or playful as usual and she can see the tension in his shoulders.

She's been given strict orders to bed rest for at least three days following her discharge, for swelling on her brain due to being flung out of the way or a charging ripper tends to do that to a girl.

He stares at her,

"I don't see you as an object, Enzo" she states quietly staring deep into the lurid red/orange tomato soup.

His eyes soften and she's jostled as he perches on the bed.

"Then why petal?"

"I can't explain it really." She begs him to see with her eyes, "I've not got a depraved plan honestly."

He chuckles,

"Of all the people to exact some twisted revenge on me, you are at the bottom of the list, Sarah."

"Good to know" she says around a mouthful of crusty roll.

"You shouldn't want that of me though. Why would you want to tempt death when you are so full of life."

His hand has strayed to brush across her upturned arm where he pulse pounds strongly in her wrist.

His eyes flick up to her neck, and he sees the pulse there clearly too.

His ears strain to hear her beating heart, thrumming faster than usual.

He knows that if he looks up at her face he'll see desire and he knows if he looks up his control may not hold.

He shouldn't want to kiss her, it will not repay his debt. On the contrary it will build further.

"Eat your soup before it gets cold" he say hoarsely as he zips from the room.

OOO


	6. Chapter 6

_You are all amazing. My mistakes however are not.  
OOO_

_It's just her and Lily, there's no Enzo or Damon or Matt and Alaric swooping in with wooden bullets and vervain grenades. The door to her art studio is securely locked and the small space had never felt more claustrophobic._

_"Maybe when he sees your pretty little neck far away from your pretty little body he and my sons might start taking some notice of my threats."_

_Her back hits the wall and she scrambles aimlessly hoping her fingers will magically find a weapon, but time is slipping away as the monster fully takes over her face and Lily lunges for the pulse in her neck._

She suffocating in her duvet and she wrestles it away her body heaving and sticky from perspiration. She shakes her head chanting furiously in her head that Lily is locked in the Salvatore dungeon after her failed attack on Sarah a week and half ago.

It doesn't stop the dream from feeling any less real, and she rues that it is Matt who is sprawled on her sofa stranded with 'Sarah watch.' He makes great coffee but it sadly doesn't dampen the nightmares.

She thinks it's all a bit over the top, seeing as the threat to her person is under lock and key, but since her accident everyone has been treating her like she is made of glass. It would be sweet if it wasn't so smothering.

_You don't say that when Enzo is 'on duty.'_

She's making breakfast wondering if the light over a lake Enzo showed her last week will be good enough for some shots she had in mind. Matt had stirred grumpily when she emerged from her bedroom half an hour later, stretching out his neck and mumbling about "there not being enough coffee to make this morning good."

So she's quite surprised to see him stood on the line where the tile of her kitchen area meets the grey carpet of her living space dressed and looking alarmed.

The piece of toast in her hand thuds on the plate and she swallows heavily.

"What's happened?"

Matt eyes her warily, afraid of his next words

"It's Enzo."

They're in his cruiser and tearing toward Mystic Falls before the her coffee was even at a drinkable temperature.

Damon greets them somberly at the door and she suddenly hates this house with a passion that makes her fists clench.

"He's asking for you" he says simply.

She is led to a guest room where there are only dusty old antiques covered with great white sheets. She distantly notes an irony in that somewhere but cannot take her eyes the pale figure writhing on the bed in obvious agony.

Stefan must interpret correctly her stutters as enquiry to why he is like this as he answers

"Lily's witch hybrids came and put a curse on Enzo which won't lift unless we release Lily"

"But can't the curse be broken?"

Stefan smiles ruefully

"Ideally yes, but that's where it is clever. To break it he must drink the blood of the last human he drank from, and given that they are no longer alive that is not really an option. Bonnie is doing some research but it is not looking good."

"Why are you keeping her alive when all she is intent on doing is killing everyone, but mainly me? If she's dead then won't that lift the curse?" She asks desperately, she knew her attachment to the dashing British vampire ran beyond the attraction that went between them but to the point of willingly sacrificing someone else for him, does scare her.

Stefan's eyes darken and Damon chuckles from the doorway

"She's definitely inherited my good sense brother."

"That is not an option."

The argument is interrupted by Enzo shouting her name brokenly from the bed.

She rushes to him and he grabs her arm she uses her other to smooth a damp lock of his back.

He pulls her to him and whispers raggedly.

"You get your wish after all pet."

Her breath hitches and she stares at him wide eyed

"You mean...?"

Well at least that explains exactly why he has been asking for her.

Her heart both sinks and soars as she knows she holds the cure, but that he didn't just want her here, to be with him.

Two sets of eyes pierce her as she holds out her wrist, as she did outside this very house all those months ago. Yet this time there's no hesitation or soft words just hungry buzzing pressure at her wrist. Her eyes flutter shut as she muses she'd enjoy this much better without an audience.

It may be a necessity to save his life, but Sarah gives her blood freely and whole heartedly. It makes her feel alive, to know that she in turn is giving life. Even if it is to a creature they call the undead.

The effect is immediate, his face relaxes and colour begins to reappear the blood trickling out of his nose and ears subsides and his whole body slumps back onto the bed. He holds her wrist limply in his hand and smiles at her sleepily.

"Once again Sarah Nelson, it is more than I deserve." He rasps softly, sincerely, before he surrenders to unconsciousness.

It is with dread that she turns around to face Stefan and Damon, and quite rightly as they are looking at her with a mixture of anger and astonishment.

"Well seeing as the curse didn't finish him off, I just might" Damon declares with a pointed venomous look at the comatose vampire.

"It was after you" she glances to Stefan nervously "kidnapped us and brought us here, he wasn't as strong as he made out when we left so I may have offered to feed him my blood." It comes out in a rush and her she feels hot with shame as if explaining a misdeed to her mom or dad.

Stefan bows his head at the memory, clearly not a pleasant time, she doesn't know much about him but Enzo explained he feels everything deeply, a throwback from his humanity so all the things he did whilst he had no emotions weighs twice as heavy on him now.

"Well whilst that was kind of you Sarah we do have blood bags."

"He did say that" she mutters.

"What I can't understand" the eldest Salvatore cuts in "is how has Enzo not fed on a human since that night."

Sarah frowns and Stefan looks up thoughtfully.

"Didn't you say you have blood bags?"

"Well yes, but I don't think Enzo is partial to them. Imagine eating only dried or tinned food and you have an idea of what a blood bag is to an vampire. Nothing quite beats the taste of it hot and fresh straight from the source."

The brothers lapse into communicating with one another silently, Damon cuts his eyes to her and Stefan bows his head solemnly.

"What?" It comes out rather forcefully, a mixture of her frustration at them cutting her out, and the tension of the past hour.

There's a terse pause before Damon suggests she wait downstairs and they'll arrange for her to get back home.

"No, I'm staying here and waiting for him to wake up."

She must have sounded determined as neither Salvatore argues further.

They both leave discussing what to do now about the Lily situation.

"Sarah"

It tugs at her heart to hear her name sound so weak on his lips.

She looks up from where she is sat beside his bed in a spindly wooden chair she unearthed under an old fitted sheet in the corner, her head resting on the soft blanket on the bed.

"How much trouble are we in?"

"They took it rather well actually, they were more surprised that you had been living on blood bags and there was some weird tense silent brother chat going on."

He tenses and she wonders just what the significance of all this is. That maybe whatever conclusions the two made, may not be far from the truth.

"Do you need more blood?" She asks hesitantly.

He shakes his head shifting slightly grimacing.

"Not to worry, my body shutting down and beginning to decompose was never going to be a walk in the park was it?"

She doesn't know what to say or do to help so she simply crawls up onto the bed fitting her body across his.

If she surprises him, she doesn't see as her face is buried into the side of his torso.

"Call it my measly human substitution to keeping the nightmares away."

He chuckles

"Does that mean I'm busted?"

"Enzo, you were busted months ago, that doesn't mean I don't appreciate it."

A hand glides through her hair

"How bad was last night's, petal?"

"Not as bad as the one where you are dying and needing my blood" she mumbles.

The hand squeezes at her shoulder, in comfort, in pain, she's not sure. But they lapse into silence and fall into a sleep she is glad to say is dreamless.

OOO

"You're never gonna believe this, but Enzo has been cured. Apparently Sarah's blood was the key" she says with a significant look.

Bonnie huffs her hair out of her face the heavy grimoire falling shut with a definite thud.

"That is just not possible, the link spell Tara did would have shown who he last drank from."

Caroline open her arms dramatically.

"Messenger here don't shoot"

The young witch rolls her eyes at her friend's exaggeration but is troubled by the revelation.

"Well" she begins slowly "cured or not, the heretics are going to be really pissed off now. We need to come up with something" she mutters distractedly running her fingers down the shelves lined with spell books.

Caroline beams

"Great, Stefan will be pleased. Damon, naturally, is working on a back up 'let's-kill-everyone-and-hope-for-the-best contingency plan."

Bonnie snorts now poring over a huge tome that emits a puther of dust with every page turn.

"I feel so much better now knowing that" she mutters dryly.


	7. Chapter 7

Enzo says trolley, which is British for cart. I was going to change it, but he is supposed to be British so I thought I'd keep it. Soz.

Sorry for the mega mistakes, lemon and lime crunch cake for you all!

OOO

She had spent most of the journey imagining what his house would be like, if it would have any of the feeling of boarding house, of having seen many years of a life. He drives her to a small town West of both Duke and Mystic Falls.

What she finds is a modest sized modernly furnished apartment. It doesn't feel lived in and it is not full of the belongings of someone who has lived as long as Enzo.

She questions him on this and he offers a small tense smile.

"This is a recent purchase, I was, unreachable for many years" she frowns wanting to push further, get more answers but he's already shut down and moved on to showing her to the spare room.

_"Look I don't want to cause any trouble, and besides I have my flat at Duke."_

_"Sarah" Enzo begins soothingly "you are a target like it or not so it would be so much safer for you to just go away for a while. You shouldn't be alone, and I have somewhere no one has reason to link to any of us so it makes perfect sense."_

_"Enzo is right for once" Damon agree with a pointed look "Bon is working on a stellar plan, the whole thing will be over in a few days I promise"_

_There's a snort from Alaric, he looks raggedly tired with deep bags under his eyes and a lifetime of sorrow within them. His clothes are wrinkled and his hair over long, and the stubble on his face is at least 3 days old. _

_Her heart clenches as she remembers Enzo telling her he lost his wife and unborn twins. Killed by another siphoner, made possible by Lily and her resolve hardens. If this is what she needs to do however cowardly she thinks it, she will._

_After they had finalised details she approaches him. He is not paying attention rubbing his temples with his fingers. So she places a tentative arm on his shoulder he looks up startled. _

_"I'm sorry, I thought for a second you were.. never mind" he says on an exhale._

_ "I'm sorry" she says hope that in her touch and those two words she can convey her sympathy and sorrow. _

_She may have only just recently learnt what happened to her parents, but she's always been an orphan._

_Alaric is the other way round. _

_Like jigsaw pieces._

_He doesn't look at her so she goes to leave him in peace but as she does he grabs her hand and squeezes it. _

_Maybe it was enough._

"It's not much sorry, I'm not really into the interior design thing. That's more Blondie's bag, but as I'm not letting her anywhere near anything I might dare to call my home, I guess it'll just have to stay that way."

Several ridiculous notions of her helping swoosh through her head leaving her with the feeling of having drunk a glass of wine on an empty stomach before she crushes them.

"It's fine, honestly."

The room has plain white painted walls with pale blue carpet with thin black striped in it. Heavy black curtains cover the floor length windows on the back wall, drowning the otherwise light decoration. She is pleased to see a double bed on the right hand wall with big duvet and three pillows like her bed at home. She turns to him in question and he shrugs.

"Coincidence"

OOO

He'd bought the apartment as a way of building his own life as a vampire, alone, and autonomous of sophisticated women promising things they couldn't carry through on, and tiny suffocating cells.

This place would be his to make memories in.

So far he'd only been back when absolutely necessary and to do some maintenance.

Until now, of course.

He'd spent a lot of time at Sarah's place, so it was a foreign feeling to have her here. Not because she was encroaching on his space, because it still didn't feel like his yet. But because she looked right being there.

She fit better than any piece of furniture he'd bought to fill the vast space.

To say that was a worrying revelation was an understatement.

He busies himself unpacking the shopping they picked up as Sarah had reminded him she needed 'human food.' He'd quite enjoyed watching her rush round the supermarket cramming things into the trolley. She'd blushed when she picked up sanitary towels muttering something about not knowing how long she'd be staying.

He'd just found the whole think amusing but a bit too domestic.

He hated to admit that he enjoyed spending time with her in this way. It wasn't something he'd had the chance to do yet it his hundred plus years.

He was immortal, with super senses, and the ability to do anything in the world. Yet here he was trailing around a shop after a mere human girl.

He wouldn't be anywhere else.

He opens the fridge and frowns when he notices the lack of bloodbags. Well, that was an oversight he could have done without. No matter, he'd just have to go out at some point. It was something he'd planned to do, but Sarah would be safe here on the notion that it was not known to anyone except Bonnie who had put a distance cloaking spell on the place.

He doesn't know whether it's because he'd discovered he hadn't got any, or the fact that he was still recovering from being drained from the inside out, but he is suddenly thirsty.

His nostrils flare and he turns to see Sarah enter the kitchen.

"Are you okay?"

He both adores and hates her perceptiveness.

"Fine petal, I just need to pop out, I er forgot something."

"So soon?" She frowns "wait, are you hungry?"

"Even if I was, I am not drinking from you again today."

He's momentarily puzzled why she doesn't push and then he realises his wording "or any day. As I keep saying I don't deserve you speaking to me never mind your blood."

She just rolls her eyes and goes to the fridge where she extracts some food.

"Um Enzo? You put the bread in the fridge"

He blinks non-plussed at the statement

"Yes, is there a problem? A fridge is just a modern larder right?"

She smiles at him and he feels self-conscious for not getting something so simple, so human right.

"Bread goes in here, the bread bin" she says going to the metal box with a roller shutter type opening and depositing the loaf inside after snagging a couple of slices.

It all made sense now.

She leans against the granite worktop eating her food, perhaps not comfortable enough to go to the table or anywhere else without permission. He wants to voice that she can go anywhere and invade as much of this space as possible, but he's too transfixed on the bread bin.

She's makes his house a home.

OOO

She doesn't know how the dream softening thing works, but it appears to work through walls as she has peaceful nights but he is never there, nor is she aware of his presence in her room.

Ever since the they'd had the bread conversation on that first night she'd noticed a shift in him. He'd distanced himself yet took to looking at her deeply when he thought she wasn't looking.

The lock clicks and she looks up from her laptop where she is working on some images, her breath leaves her in a rush when she sees him and she hadn't even realized she'd been tense.

"In one piece, no worries petal." He holds up a bag of groceries in one hand and another she knows to contain blood bags.

"Any news?" She asks casually but she does worry about the people back in Mystic Falls, as much as she doesn't want to become attached to them, she fears it may already be too late.

"Not yet, the plan as all witchy plans do, needs a supernatural event which unfortunately doesn't happen until next week. For now it is damage limitation but Damon says the heretics and Lily are suspiciously quiet."

She'd been panicked when he'd told her of Lily's escape the night after she'd arrived here, but then immediately soothed because she'd done as suggested and come some place safe. It didn't make sense that she wanted to kill Sarah so avidly, but being alive versus dying trying to make it fit in her logical mind wins every time.

He goes to put everything away and then comes to sit next to her on the plush leather sofa. She sighs setting the laptop on the glass coffee table before resting her head on his shoulder, his arms immediately snaking around her middle, safe. Ever since the day she'd saved him, they'd found solace in similar comfort like this. They never spoke about it, or questioned the particulars, it was just instinct. Like magnets they found the other's embrace, and like magnets she never wanted to let go.

She awakes later to find herself on her bed _his bed, your temporary bed _she corrects herself. Just like the twice before she'd fallen asleep in his arms on the sofa, she'd ended up here. Yet unlike before it had always been later on at night and she'd awoken with a new day streaming through her curtains as her alarm clock.

Tonight it is dark in her room save for the single strip of light filtering under the door. She swipes at her eyes and decides that a shower is in order.

She doesn't think to check on Enzo's whereabouts, so when she wades into the bathroom and is assaulted by lavender musk scented steam, she wants to run away and fall into him at the same time.

He stares at her mid towel stroke, thankfully covering his dignity and raises a brow

"Would you like a photograph?"

"I wouldn't want to break my lens" she shoots out tersely before turning around, but not meaning a word of it.

A whoosh of air and she finds her back against the cool white tile.

"Is that so love? That's not what your body is telling me" he growls licking a path from her neck to her ear, she shivers.

"Don't start something you aren't prepared to finish" she warns her breath deserting her.

His chuckle is muffled by her skin, but it is answer enough.

She startles awake, hyper aware of her body pressed against his, even with the layers of clothing between them.

She shuffles apart, making a show of stretching, putting off having to look at him. She knows from the stiff set of his shoulders he was privy to her very private dream, and she knows she cannot explain any of it away.

"I, um, I'm going to get dinner."

She rushes to the kitchen, burying her head in the fridge, though she wishes it was sand.

She jumps when she she's him stood next to the stove looking serious.

"Okay, go ahead make all the dirty jokes you want. I'll take them" she's never been good at laughing things off, that's his and Uncle Damon's bag, but his demeanor is unsettling her.

"Sarah" it's an apology, and a wistful longing all at once.

She busies herself chopping vegetable and dropping them into a pan, it hisses and sizzles. His hand grabs her wrist to force her to face him.

"I can't give you what you want Sarah."

"I wish I was petal, things are always okay when I'm petal' she sighs with regret.

There's a beat where it's just the sound of her dinner cooking unsupervised and then she's in his arms bundled tightly it's almost overwhelming.

There's no explanation, or "I really want to but" just stifling pressure and basic skin contact and a whispered sorry tangled in her hair.

Then he's gone, to his room, the living room, outside, she doesn't know.

It's just her and a burning pan of not quite pasta sauce.

As it turns out, he did go out and when he returns she is angry.

She doesn't really know where it comes from, but she is angry.

She salvages her dinner, and then has a shower dressing in her favorite casual grey top with the ripped sleeves and some black yoga pants and when he gets back she tells him so.

"If you don't like me like that Enzo, just say it. Stop this cryptic 'It's more than I deserve Sarah Nelson nonsense' and then running away. I'm a big girl, I can take it."

She's pleased to see that he's stunned, not quite sure which problem to address first.

She's almost turned around and walked away as he takes too long to respond when he speaks

"You think I don't want you?" His voice sounds funny, strained.

She turns back around but is in motion and her back finds a wall. She vaguely wonders if he did that on purpose.

"I.."

"There are so many reasons why I can't and shouldn't want you love, but don't for a second doubt that I don't."

Then his lips crash against hers, it's forceful and messy and completely unlike the other two first kisses she's had. It's a statement of want, desire and possession he has no right to claim. It sweeps her up like a rough wind in a storm and she clings onto him for dear life and then it dies down to embers, to a gentle breeze and sincerity and tender passion take over. It tells her of love and protection and it makes her sigh into his mouth.

She stands there for several moments after he left her wordlessly, feeling like the wreckage in the aftermath.

She doesn't know the purpose of the kiss, but all she does know is that its effects of irreversible.


	8. Chapter 8

Sorry for the late update. The Big Pink owns the beginning lyrics, and Hozier the end. Sorry for the errors.

_OOO_

_You're made for me, and I'll leave love alone  
You call out my name for the love you need  
But you won't find it in me_

It's a desperate song uttered to the night, expelled and lost. She doesn't hear it because she is lost to sleep. She's restless, and he knows their earlier tryst plays on her mind. No dreams have established yet, she's not far enough into her slumber, not peaceful enough. She turns again the thin sheet now falling below her hip, the duvet lies abandoned on the floor. He picked it up 10 minutes ago but it soon found its way back.

He sighs and it makes him feel weary. Vampire don't get weary, just like they don't get ill, or run down.

He's fighting a battle he knows he's already lost, confirmed as soon as his lips brushed hers. He should have stopped, but he couldn't let her go on with the misconception that he didn't care.

He's lived his miserable life loving one dead woman and hating one for leaving him.

Now he has the love or someone he cannot afford to love back.

The price is too high, for her.

Her body tenses and her legs start to fail and he curses because his musing caused him to miss the grip of terror taking hold of this precious creature in front of him. He ignores the smooth skin on show and delves immediately into her mind.

_He's expecting to find mess and destruction, her in some mortal danger, probably at the hands of Lily, but what he finds chills his blood._

_She's knelt over his lifeless body, a stake standing proud in his chest._

_'I did you a favour' a voice taunts it has no body just an echo in the atmosphere._

_He stands behind her, and places his cool hands on her tear swollen eyes. He pulls them away from the tragedy and into his go to place. It's a field he used to roam when he was a child, she's never asked him about it, but then again they never really discuss her dreams. He wondered at first if she just didn't remember but he gets the feeling she doesn't ask questions she doubts he'll answer._

_It makes him want to her to ask._

_She lays down in the long grass dotted with heather and sweet smelling flowers, face peaceful now._

_He hums his lament from earlier, knowing it is lost once again._

_OOO_

It's been two weeks and she's restless waking now, not just in her dreams like last night. There's only so much photography to work on, books to read, and films she can watch she tells him. It's rational, well said and not at all whiny. So he relents, and they go to a nearby park she runs a few laps before snapping some shots. She tries to get him to pose but he refuses, so she takes some of him anyway. She laughs at his reticence and it is such a happy sound.

Like a flower kept in a dark room she was screaming for sunlight, air, and freedom.

Her head falls back and he immediately zeros in on her pulse point, the veins threaten to ripple but he swallows heavily and just wills it away.

He doesn't want to be a monster.

'I know you ran out of blood bags 3 days ago' she says casually fiddling with some setting on her camera.

'How many times do I have to say that you don't need to worry about me, petal' he grumbles with a roll of his eyes.

'I'm still guessing we'll be going back via the hospital.'

He doesn't say anything. It just hangs there, just like the kiss, just like this thing between them which has grown despite and in spite of everything that has happened. It is like seed scattered on parched scorched land yet still flourishes, still has deep roots. He cannot stop it, he cannot understand it. Just like he cannot stop her or understand her. She is a force of nature and he is under her spell.

OOO

He discovered singing when he was the Augustine vampire, he conjured up songs he'd heard long ago and mimicked them just to pass the time, just for something to divert him from the burning hunger and his body slowly desiccating, crumbling, dying, screaming for nourishment while he sat through it.

When he bought this house he bought a guitar, because that's what people did these days. There was always some sorry sap strumming on a guitar warbling into a mic in any number of bars one cared to walk into.

He managed to learn the basics in a couple of weeks, but never had chance to really do it seriously. Not like Sarah and her photos, or Stefan and his cars, or blondie and her insane micromanaging.

The next night when he's sure Sarah is settled, without help, probably owing to their trip outdoors, he finds himself in his room eyes burning holes in the sleek curves of the guitar. For the first time ever he itches to sing, to expel his thoughts, he feelings in this way.

It's all completely foreign as he never truly had chance before, he never thought he needed it. But really, if he's learnt anything being around the Mystic Falls bunch is that being a vampire isn't that different from being human. You're not exempt from feeling, in fact it's only worse, and strutting around pretending otherwise is bloody stupid.

He doesn't and point black refuses to admit that to anyone else, but fortunately he's the one doing the mind reading no one else.

It's not a song meant for guitar but he'd heard it at the end of one of the movies Sarah had watched, and it just slips from his fingers and his lips. He doesn't really know the words, but he doesn't think that's the point. Right then, he is just a man in love his heart bursting with the intensity of it.

OOO

When she wakes it is still night, the covers rest neatly around her and she's not panicking so she's knows it's not her nightmares that pulled her back to consciousness.

Her minds flicks to him, as it always seems to do lately. She hates that she's become this infatuated with him, but it's hard living so close to him. Her days filled with nothing but distractions from what might be happening in Mystic Falls, when actually now they're just distractions from him.

Ever since he kissed her she feels like a vampire hyper aware of his presence and the need to do it again, and more. She squirms at the thought embarrassed yes, but more than that too.

She stares into the darkness hand toying with the edge of the sheet, and then she can take no more and she's out of bed, padding to the door.

She was going to his room, just for a way of a change. To be the watcher instead of the watched. Her brain scoffs at her, _he's a vampire he'll know the second you enter the room, hell he probably even knows now._ Her fingertips dance across the handle she holds her breath and pushes the door open a fraction then stills.

There's music, it's soft strummed notes and a low melancholy vocal. The words aren't really intelligible, but she recognizes the song even if she can't place it.

But more than that, Enzo _sings._

It had always struck her that when they talked her never really had any true interest or hobbies. Sure, he had great tales to tell about his misadventures and travels, but whereas she would babble on about her photos he never had anything to return.

But now there's this, and her heart stutters.

She squeezes through the impossibly narrow gap, not wanting to draw his attention, praying that he's too lost in the song, she just wants to see him.

He's sat in the wide windowsill, looking out into the night. He wears only a black t-shirt and some jogging bottoms and even though they've been doing this living together thing for a fortnight, it's the most casual she's seen him.

She leans against the wall and closes her eyes and just let's it wash over her. It's not perfect singing, it's not polished singing. It's throaty and instinctive but it feels like a gift, like it's been poured out from him to her.

The song fades away and she knows she'll be caught now but she doesn't move.

"Play something else, please."

"Go back to bed Sarah" it's a tired warning with no impetus behind it.

So instead she goes to sit across from him.

"This is becoming quite the habit, I say no and you just go ahead anyway" it's not an accusation or angry it's just a fact.

"Is this the part where you walk away?' she quips bitterly.

"If you hadn't noticed this is my room, so probably not."

It's progress that makes her heart jolt at the unexpectedness of it so she takes a leap.

"Just tonight, just give me tonight and then you can go back to you million and one reasons why we would never work."

He shoves the guitar away facing her frustration clear in his voice.

"I dragged you into something I had no right to do and now I'm struggling just to right all the wrongs. You think I'm heroic swooping in saving your life, watching over your dreams, but I'm not Sarah. You shouldn't need rescuing and you shouldn't need comforting in the first place. You should be happy and blissfully unaware."

He reaches over and she think it's going to be a tender gesture but instead he seeks out the ridge of the small scar on her skull from her operation.

"That scar is my mistake' his voice cracks in sour defeat.

Her voice is small but firm

"You're wrong. You say I'd be happy, and blissfully unaware. The second maybe, but the first no. I've never been happy. Not really, you saw that in my work and it's true. I never know what happened to my biological parents, I never knew why I was obsessed with dark things and death. But now I do, and it's peaceful. I said I didn't want to be involved with it, and I guess I don't. But I don't regret the knowledge and I really don't regret meeting you. You paint yourself as this monster, but you're just a man Enzo. You're just a man."

He can't look at her, can't let her see how vulnerable her words have made him. If he was a tightly sealed box, well then she's took her crowbar and worked and worked until she's prised the lid right off him.

She scurries across the cavernous gap between them and into his arms, and he clings to her desperately.

"Angel" he breathes into her hair and she sobs. He knows she loves the names he gives her. Each ones expressing things he simply can't any other way.

Then they're kissing and he doesn't know who started it, he just knows that he needs it more than anything, more than the blood lust more than revenge, or answers, or belonging to a group of people he was promised but cruelly denied.

There's a light pressure at his chest and she pulls away from him gasping

"Human.. need air"

He chuckles throatily as his lips breeze kisses down her ear, her throat to the base of her neck.

"I don't know what this is between Enzo, I.."

"You were right, love. No talking, not tonight." But she's stiff in his arms, reticent, apprehensive.

"You're not just going to leave again are you?"

"Well you are in my house" he points out with a grin which is lost somewhere between her hair and he shoulder. "No, I'm not going to leave. I don't know what we're going to do, but right now I'm going to kiss you, and more besides." She shivers and he grins again "that's the spirit."

It's an unlikely match, the innocent if not misguided human girl with the troubled vampire who has suffered more than ten of his lifetimes. But in the half light of his room it's perfect.

_Never feel too good in crowds,  
With folks around, when they're playing  
The anthems of rape culture loud,  
Crude and proud creatures baying  
All I've ever done is hide  
From our times when you're near me  
__**Honey, when you kill the lights, and kiss my eyes  
I feel like a person for a moment of my life**_

_[...]_

_It feels good, girl, it feels good  
It feels good, girl, it feels good  
It feels good, girl, it feels good  
Oh to be alone with you_


	9. Chapter 9

It's finished! Sorry for the smut. Sorry if the ending seems rushed or implausible. Sorry for the late update. Just generally sorry.  
Thank you thank you thank you for reading. You are wonderful.  
I have a bonus scene in my head that I need to write. I may tag it on to this story or just make it into a one shot but in this universe.

OOO

The sky is starting to lighten, it's only fractional but she stares at it with hatred. Her fingers pinch together halting their feather light path along the material of his sleep shirt. She savours this moment, to know for once they have some sort of even footing in the vulnerability department. She wants to be his equal, not the poor helpless thing he has to save all the time.

She has one of the buttons open and is lightly tracing a path on the exposed skin she can reach when his velvet tones halt her progress

"Starting without me love?" His voice is rough with sleep and it does strange things to the pit of her stomach.

Her lips twitch and she ignores him continuing to open his shirt. She knows he knows that this can be over at any time he wishes, she is no match for him, but she loves that he lies still for her.

"What are you thinking about?"

Her eyes flick to the uncovered windows, where pinky light pierces the black.

"It's almost morning" she says simply, hoping all her fears and doubts will be conveyed in that short sentence.

Suddenly, she's on her back hard heavy male pressed against her, but it is his dark stare that pins her to the bed.

"Did you think I would spend the night with you then compel you to forget?"

She squirms, trying to wriggle free from the spotlight she feels put up under.

"You said it yourself, how could we possibly ever be together? We're haunted by vengeful vampires, and goodness knows what else. And then even if we could have a quiet life there's the small problem of the fact you are immortal and I'm just a bloodbag. And even if I could convince you that I wanted to be turned, you have it in your head that you need to repay your debt to me by giving me a safe, normal, but dull life." She struggles in his iron grip "Well guess what Enzo? I don't want to be normal, I just want you. I know it's stupid, but I'm sick of having to pretend to feel a certain way to make others happy."

She fights one last time and jolts forward as the force keeping her there suddenly disappears from her and from the room. She scrambles from the bed disorientated, bereft.

She picks up the duvet from the floor, fingers tracing the stripes absently her mind whirling. She's straightening the pillows when she feels his presence at the door. She does not turn around, retaliation maybe for his sudden departure, though Lord knows she getting used to them now.

"Did you really mean it?"

She pauses in her work and turns to face him

"Yes" she says honestly openly, "last night and right now."

He doesn't reply immediately, he looks lost at sea and she desperately wants to wrap herself around him.

"I don't know what to do with that. I've always wanted to belong to something, to someone. After Lily, I... Well I supposed I vowed I would never allow myself to be that vulnerable again. But you Sarah, you waltz him here and just strip it all away. It's just gone. I.."  
She does go to him them folding herself into his arms, latching on like a whelk, a barnacle. She can hear his heavy breathing in her hair, maybe he's weeping she doesn't know. But she does know that it feels like home here.

Then suddenly his lips are on hers and they're kissing like theirs lives depend on it. She pushes and he pushes right back gathering her into his arms and onto the bed. She pushes at his chest and he relents and allows her to push him onto his back peppering his neck with kisses as they fight with night shirts and underwear.

"I like a woman in control" he quips to which she just rolls her eyes and silences him by lining him at her entrance and sinking home. His fingers hover at her hips, but he doesn't lead from below. He lets her set the pace, and when she finds it, right there, her eyes flicker shut and her breath hitches. He watches her intently, he's awash with her scent and the sound of her hammering pulse but neither smell nor sound can beat sight.

He knows she's nearly there when her fingers try to find purchase in the sheets, and she clenches around him. He sits up and she gasps at the sensation, as he whispers elicit dirty encouragement peppered with her pet names.

It doesn't take long before her head falls back and his lips find her pulse as she finds her climax. Her blood is singing to him so he pushes her back a bit further and her pliant, sated body offers no resistance as he find his own release.

OOO  
Lily Salvatore and the Heretics were more powerful than anyone gave them credit for, she wanted Enzo's little play thing dead and that's what she got. He was so devastated that he's fighting was sloppy and he got a stake to his heart soon after.

At least that's what the unofficial records say.

Damon Salvatore knows differently. Even if everyone else, including his own brother believe him unhinged, the loss of his soul mate finally sending him over the edge.

But he knows he is not wrong.

Enzo's house was a mess, the place witness to a fight between powerful beings. Furniture scattered and splintered, smashed belongings, and two dead bodies on the living room floor. Stefan had paled at the sight of his niece and friend/enemy. But Damon had not seen Sarah and Enzo but two other people he had never seen before. He'd frowned at his brother's reaction and when he'd looked back he understood why. There they lay. But he knew deep down it wasn't them. It was as if he was being sent a message.

Stefan organised the funerals, and he took Sarah's death hard. Caroline was the only one who could provide solace and he both blessed and cursed Enzo's death. Wishing he could resurrect him just to kill him again. However Damon had insisted they give him a decent send off.

Damon tried to explain what he saw, but his younger brother was infuriatingly deaf and unsympathetic on the subject.

"It was wishful thinking Damon, a self-protection mechanism. You've lost so much, you saw what you wanted to see. Someone else dead, someone who didn't mean anything."

He went to see Bonnie instead, hoping she'd be more understanding.

"So Bon, Caroline mentioned that you thought it odd that heretic witchy would get Enzo's last victim wrong as a loophole to the curse she put on him."

She looks up from the piles of books strewn across her dorm desk.

"Hi Damon, of course you can come in, it's not like I'm studying or anything."

At his pointed, un-amused look she sighs throwing her pen down.

"Yes. It didn't make sense."

"Well" he says with a flourish pushing off the door frame and going to sit on a chair that he vacates of yet more books "I have a theory. What if witchy was actually pro team us than pro team Lily? What if, she protected Enzo then, and is protecting both Sarah and Enzo now."

A look he is quickly coming to hate passes over Bonnie's face. Pity.

"Damon, I know your theory that they're not actually dead, but really, why would the witch want to help them? What would be in it for her?"

He huffs and rises from the chair.

"Not you too Bon, I've got enough on with Stefan."

"Damon wait" she calls as he stalks from her room.

So he goes to the only person who won't judge him. Mainly because she's currently playing the role of sleeping beauty. But he knows even if she was her vibrant, brilliant conscious self she'd still listen and at least try to understand his argument. She was so incredibly empathetic, and he longed just to see those eyes look at him with compassion and acceptance. No pity, no judgement. Just love. Even if she didn't always agree, which happened a lot.

He gave himself only three chances to open her tomb. Three moments when he would most need just to see her face, and talk to her face to face even if it would be entirely one sided.

Funny he thinks, it's as if someone has already been in here recently. Shaking his head, knowing what Stefan and Bonnie would think at yet more outlandish theories, and focuses on his love.

He brushes at her hair, and just admires her peaceful features and even breathing. It's nice to see her at peace, for someone who has suffered as much as Elena she in some ways deserves this he thinks.

Then he notices her wrist. There's a puncture mark, a recent one.

Why would anyone want... He clenches his eyes shut. _Stop Damon. You have to stop. You really are crazy if you think your friend has made himself mortal to live out his days in peace with your niece. not only is it a crazy theory given the facts before you. It's completely unlike Enzo. Laughable really, Enzo turning human for a woman._

Laughter shakes his whole frame and he wipes at his eyes.

_Yes,_ he thinks, _I really have lost it._

OOO

There's a house near fields full of lavender and basil, and in the office there is a picture.

It's a stunning photo, enlarged in black and white its subject keenly in focus. It hangs proudly behind the desk of a woman recently dead, but her house bears testament to a full and happy life lived.

Just like _he _wanted.

Just like Stefan and Damon wanted.

Enzo stares down at him, just as he always remembered him but Damon can already see the changes in him. Even then. His eyes hold the struggle of his vampirism, and the years of torture and suffering. They hold hurt and betrayal, but they hold hope too. Hope stands at the other end of the lens brandishing the camera.

Sarah Nelson and Lorenzo Augustine have been dead for over sixty years. The coroner's report and witnesses confirmed it.

His theory was just a manic, desperate attempt to clutch at straws. The product of a grieving mind to saturated by death to cope with it.

He stares up at the photo again and smiles.

"Miss you too buddy."

_fin._


End file.
